FRANK SMITH AT THE EMBERS, MELBOURNE 1960-61 by Ted Nettelbeck

24 Pages·2017·0.78 MB·English

by  Eric Myers

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FRANK SMITH AT THE EMBERS, MELBOURNE 1960-61

by Ted Nettelbeck*
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[A recollection prompted by questions from Eric Myers, November 2017.]

Eric Myers: How did you meet Frank Smith?

Ted Nettelbeck: The Oscar Peterson Trio (Ray Brown, Ed Thigpen) was booked to
play at The Embers, in early June 1960. Billy Ross (drums), myself (piano) and Dicky
Korf (bass) were at that time the rhythm section for Bruce Gray’s All Stars, the
leading Adelaide jazz band at that time. We made the trip to Melbourne to hear
Peterson, driving in Billy’s car. The 3-out trio was in the audience at the Embers on
the night when we attended; and Mike Nock sat in during one of Frank’s sets. I had
already met him and Freddy Logan on my first visit to Sydney about three years

Frank Smith (left) pictured here performing in Sydney with the trumpeter Ron
Falson… PHOTO © RON FALSON ARCHIVE
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*Ted Nettelbeck is a professional jazz pianist and academic. He retired as paid staff
recently at the University of Adelaide, where he is now Emeritus Professor in
Psychology, and relocated to Melbourne.
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earlier and Freddy had in the meantime come through Adelaide on a couple of
occasions (I don’t recall the reasons) and he had sat in with us at a regular gig that we
had at that time in Burnside. He had already commented favourably on both my and
Bill’s playing and had generally been encouraging to me. (Later, when I worked in
London 1962-65, when Freddy was the bass player in Tubby Hayes’ quintet, he also
went out of his way to help me, introducing me around the music scene and coming
by my place to practice together).

Unbeknown to myself or Billy, Frank had been chatting with Freddy and had told
him that he was looking for a drummer and a pianist because his drummer Alan
Geddes (a cousin of Frank’s) was returning to Sydney; and both Frank and Barbara
Virgil did not like the current pianist’s playing; (I don’t remember his name but recall
that he was Canadian). Freddy told Frank about us; and he came over to our table
and invited us to audition the next day. Of course, we both jumped at the chance.
Fortunately for both of us, because our sight-reading skills were poor and (as it
subsequently proved) below the standard required to deal competently with the
regular floor shows scheduled at The Embers, Frank’s approach to the audition was
haphazard and cavalier in the extreme. He passed out a couple of chord charts (no
problems there) and then put up the music (lead line with chords) to Almost Like
Being in Love, a tune with which we were already familiar. We were hired on the
spot, with an agreed starting date a month or so hence.

The Frank Smith Quartet with singer Barbara Virgil at The Embers 1960. From left: Ted
Nettelbeck (piano), Bill Ross (drums), Ivan Videky (bass), Frank Smith (saxes).
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My subsequent impression was that Frank initially liked Billy’s playing – he was an
excellent swinging drummer – and I got the gig because I happened to be with Bill. It
was a case of being in the right place at the right time. Following the audition, we
returned to Adelaide; and Billy and I duly came back to Melbourne at the appointed
time, again in Bill’s car. We moved into a boarding house in Shipley Street, South
Yarra a few days before we were due to start and I immediately installed an upright
piano in my room. On the following Sunday we went to the club to meet Frank and
Ivan; and duly reported for work the next day at around midday for a rehearsal that
had been scheduled for the new floor show, to commence that night. I remained a
boarder at Shipley House (an old dilapidated but charming 19th century mansion
reconfigured as small flats but long torn down and replaced by an ugly early 1980s
apartment block) for the entire time that I lived in Melbourne, but Bill later moved to
Kew when his wife and two children joined him.

EM: What sort of reputation did Smith enjoy before you met him?

TN: What I knew about his reputation initially was largely hearsay. I knew that he
had been recorded in Sydney as a member of a Music Maker All Star band; and, apart
from the members of Don Burrows’ band, Frank was one of a handful of Sydney-born
(as opposed to Adelaide-born Sydney) musicians about whom the Adelaide jazz
fraternity was aware. I had heard him only once before I heard him at The Embers at
the time of Peterson’s first booking. During my first visit to Sydney three years earlier
I had gone to a jam session in a private home where I played and heard Mike Nock
play. Later that evening, at Mike’s suggestion, I accompanied him and Dave Levy to
listen to Frank playing at El Rocco. I went because Mike had announced that he was
going to listen to Frank because he was the best saxophonist in the country. This
impressed me mightily because I had just spent a couple of nights running around
Sydney in order to hear Don Burrows, Dave Rutledge, Terry Wilkinson, Freddy
Logan and Ron Weber, a band that, to that time, I thought was the best I had ever
heard. I don’t remember much about the session at El Rocco, other than that, to me,
Frank seemed extraordinary; on that occasion he played with such passion, and with
a lot of body movement.

As I was later to realise, this movement was not characteristic of his playing at the
Embers, where his playing was frequently passionate but with much more control of
movement. In fact, his stance on the band stand at the Embers generally projected a
very still persona. At the time when I was in Melbourne, his reputation there was
huge; and he was really the main drawcard for the Sunday afternoon jazz concerts at
The Embers. He had a very large following among the younger crowd that supported
those sessions. It was at these sessions that I first met and became friends with
people like Graham Morgan and Stewie Speer, both up-and-coming drummers at the
time. (Stewie of course later became the drummer with Max Merritt and the Meteors
and continued in that role even after the terrible road accident that left him badly
crippled.) As Andrew Bisset has recounted in Black Roots, White Flowers, Oscar
Peterson had been very impressed by Frank’s playing and had spread the word to
others back in the US, including Benny Carter who brought a quartet into The
Embers while I was there and who was obviously aware that he should expect
someone who might be regarded as his equal. Frank also had a huge reputation as a
teacher and his saxophone students at that time included Graeme Lyall and Barry
Duggan, both of whom I later worked with regularly.
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EM: Did you play with Smith before he invited you to work with him at
The Embers in 1960?

TN: No; only at that one audition.

EM: How did your joining his group at The Embers come about?

TN: I’ve covered the initial contact, above. However, the reality is that I was very
fortunate to survive in the gig; and my survival was doubtless aided by Frank’s
reluctance to change his band personnel so soon after the last upheaval. When Bill
and I fronted for the new floorshow rehearsal on that first day it quickly became
apparent that our sight-reading skills were not equal to the charts brought in by the
act (a stand-up comic, name forgotten). These charts required fast playing, in the
circus tradition, with lots of accents synchronised to stage activities that had to be
“caught”. Bill and I were hopelessly lost in no time and the show’s star went spare,
fuming about our incompetence. Frank was the model of the calm, professional
bandleader. He suggested that making a scene was not helping because we were new
and extremely nervous, and suggested that the act leave his music parts with Frank,
guaranteeing that all would be in order by show time. The guy duly left the club and
Frank proceeded to take us through each of the charts, bar by bar, at slower tempos,
ensuring that we had mastered the phrasing before moving to the next stage.

There was probably not more than about 10-15 minutes of actual music interspersed
with action in the show but Frank persevered with rehearsing us for nearly four
hours, after which he sent us home with the directive that when we returned to start
work at 6pm, we must be able to play the parts. I spent most of that free time re-
rehearsing the charts and I think that Billy would have done the same. There were
two identical shows to survive and, just as Frank had promised, they went very well.
At the end of the night (2am), flushed with success I confidently shared my belief
with Frank that things had gone well. He smilingly agreed; but then added something
like “but if you can’t read the next floor show , you’re fired!”. It frightened the wits
out of me. I spent every spare moment throughout the next month improving my
sight-reading and it proved to be enough; although I have never attained anything
like the very high level of sight-reading proficiency that Frank demonstrated, I was
from then forward able to achieve enough skill to be able to survive future sight-
reading requirements. The incident also taught me that, providing I was willing to
invest the effort, I was capable of improving my skills appreciably within a relatively
short time.

EM: What sort of club was The Embers? For example, its size, capacity,
lay-out etc. Did it have a grand piano?

TN: The entrance, direct from the footpath via two huge glass doors, was just a
couple of doors east from the corner of Caroline Ave and Toorak Road at #55 Toorak
Road. I have been back there recently but nothing is recognisable from the street. I
don’t know whether the basic structure remains behind the shop fronts now there, or
whether the building has since been replaced. The front doors gave directly onto a
very large L-shaped room, on two levels, with the higher level towards the back and
accessed by a short, wide flight of steps between two pillars that supported the roof,
which was timber lined. The decor was black and red, furnished with contemporary
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Swedish-style, black metal, cushioned chairs around tables designed to seat from
four to eight. Tables could be pushed together to accommodate larger parties. To the
right was the office of the owner Jimmy Noall and next to that the cloak room check-
in. On the left-hand side but towards the back was the entrance to the kitchen. At
centre-right there was a small pool, lit from beneath the water. The bandstand, with
small band room behind, was a platform, set a step higher than and to the right of a
generous dance floor on the upper level. This area, and the entire back area also,
could be screened off by ceiling-to-floor heavy black drapes if those areas were not
required. The bandstand overlooked two sides of the pool. The piano was a Steinway
grand, about six feet in length and always kept in excellent condition. The stage easily
accommodated the regular quartet of sax, piano, bass, drums; and could manage up
to five in the front line. I don’t recall how many could be seated in the club but think
that it was probably 300 +. With the back screened off, the lower front area probably
seated about 100.

Interior of The Embers, 55 Toorak Rd, South Yarra circa 1960…

The Embers was certainly a well-appointed room, and it provided a very attractive
environment and atmosphere for listening to music. The acoustics were very good. It
was very well managed by a young man named Garry Van. (I have wondered since
whether he went on to become the celebrated Garry Van Egmond, the Australian
entertainment and events promoter but I actually have no idea).

However, The Embers had a major problem; throughout the time that I was there it
operated without a liquor licence. Why this was so I never knew; although the
rumour was that it had something to do with the reputation of the owner Jimmy
Noall. Operating hours when I started were 6pm-2am Monday-Saturday and 3pm-
5pm + 6pm-midnight Sunday. Initially, therefore, the band provided music for 40
hours/week, seven nights/week. This was later reduced for all but me; I played solo
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for an hour each night, with the band commencing at 7pm. It was not an exclusive
jazz policy, although during my time the artists booked for the floor show
appearances were predominantly jazz artists: the Oscar Peterson Trio, singer Mel
Tormé, the George Shearing Quartet, the Benny Carter Quartet, Ella Fitzgerald
accompanied by the Lou Levy quartet, Buddy Rich, pianist Ike Cole. All of these
impressed mightily and drew full houses. Al Hibbler, who had sung with Duke
Ellington, also did a show at The Embers, although his repertoire was more popular
than jazz. Obviously the quartet was not involved with some of these, like Peterson,
Fitzgerald , Shearing and Carter; but two, for whom the quartet played were
especially memorable for me.

Ella Fitzgerald at The Embers 1960. From left: Lou Levy (piano), Ella, Wilfred
Middlebrooks (bass), Herb Ellis (guitar), Gus Johnson (drums).
Mel Tormé was not only a superb singer; he was an incredibly gifted musician.
When we attended his rehearsal, he was sitting at a table with pencil and blank pages
of manuscript. He asked Frank what the instrumentation was and when told
(trumpet, alto, tenor, trombone, piano, bass, drums), he literally wrote the parts
required for each of his numbers, transposed, as required, handed them around
maybe 15 minutes later and then ran through each tune once with the band. I have
never witnessed anything like that since; Graeme Lyall became a very quick arranger
but I doubt that he could have matched Tormé.
Buddy Rich was, of course, an incredible drummer and Billy was beside himself
throughout Rich’s stay. But at the rehearsal it became clear that Rich really fancied
himself as a singer and he wanted to open each show with a song, delivered a la
Sinatra in great style before climbing onto the drums and beating them to bits at a
break-neck tempo for a full 30 minutes without drawing breath. We asked him what
he would sing and were told All Of You (pause) in B major. I learned something very
important at that moment. I glanced at Ivan, who held out his hand with two fingers
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pointing down; which meant B Flat major. We set it up in B Flat, Rich sang it; and he
never twigged the difference – which was just as well because at that time I knew that
I would not manage it in B major.

Mel Tormé at The Embers 1960. From left: Ted Nettelbeck (piano), Frank Smith
(alto), Ivan Videky (bass), Mel Tormé, hidden Paddy Fitzallan (trumpet), Bill Ross
(drums), Geoff Kitchen (tenor), Slush Stewart (trombone).

Several US jazz celebrities appearing at other Melbourne venues dropped by the
Embers to take in the scene while I was there. Dizzy Gillespie, who was touring with
the 3-out trio, was only interested in scoring a meal but Sarah Vaughan

The Frank Smith group with Dizzy Gillespie at The Embers 1960. From left: Slush
Stewart (trombone), Frank Smith (saxes), Ivan Videky (bass; front), Ted Nettelbeck
(piano), Billy Ross (drums), Dizzy Gillespie.
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and Nancy Wilson both sang a song or two. Sydney singers Joe Lane and Edwin Duff
and guitarist George Golla, all of whom had worked with Frank in the past, also sat in
with the band when they were passing through.

However, some of the artists booked were certainly nothing to do with jazz; Marlene
Dietrich, Rolf Harris, Horrie Dargie quintet – and even a French female
impersonator. Moreover, several of the shows were built around stand-up comics.
Jay Lawrence and Flip Wilson were two who had successful tours; and Tommy
Hanlon Jnr, who appeared at least three times during my time at the Embers,
actually emigrated to Australia and later had a long-running career as a TV host and
circus ringmaster. Frank was particularly taken with Tommy’s humour and chuckled
audibly at his jokes, even when he had heard them several times.

Essentially, Frank’s band played music that could be danced to, although Frank’s
“book” – subsequently mine also, much of it inherited from Frank – was
predominantly made up from jazz compositions available from recordings at the
time: Nica’s Dream, Joy Spring, Whisper Not, Donna Lee, Round Midnight,
Stablemates, Moanin’, Ä Night in Tunisia, Daahoud; many Ellington compositions;
and the standards comprising the Great American Songbook. Anyone familiar with
today’s Real Book series would have recognised The Embers repertoire. That said,
Frank was also keen to deliver entertaining show pieces that had nothing to do with
jazz. He insisted that I learn Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance, which he then turned into

The American comedian Flip Wilson at The Embers 1961. From Left: Alan Turnbull
(drums), Frank Smith (alto), Wilson, hidden probably Slush Stewart (trombone),
Ted Nettelbeck (piano), bassist not in photo probably John Frederick…
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an extravaganza for the quartet, he would occasionally perform an etude for
saxophone by Marcel Mule, and he even at one time had me singing an old somewhat
risqué ditty from the 1920s about How could Miss Riding Hood have been so very
good and still kept the wolf from the door?

The Embers was really a restaurant and supper club, with genuine jazz concerts
limited to Sunday afternoons. During the week the policy was to provide two shows a
night interspersed with dancing and these shows were identical at around 9.30-10pm
and again around 12.30-1am. How the waiting staff arranged the turnover in clientele
I have no idea. The pay for the musicians was exceptionally good although the hours
were long; I started at £50/week, which increased to £88 by the time I became
bandleader. As a comparison, a typical club job in Adelaide (6 nights) in 1960 paid
about £25/week.

EM: How long were you there with him?

TN: I no longer remember the exact dates. I think that Bill and I started in July 1960
and Frank left a little under a year later, in mid-1961, to join the Channel 9 In
Melbourne Tonight orchestra. I took over the band at that time and remained until
just after Christmas 1961, when I left for London.

Another shot of the Frank Smith Quartet with singer Barbara Virgil (centre) at The
Embers in 1960. L-R, Smith (saxes), Ted Nettelbeck (piano), Billy Ross (drums),
Ivan Videky (bass).
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EM: The photo in Bruce Johnson’s Oxford Companion to Australian Jazz
features yourself, Billy Ross, Ivan Videky, Barbara Virgil as well as Frank
Smith. Basically was this the permanent membership of the group at The
Embers?

TN: This group survived for about six months, after which Bill Ross left, persuading
Frank to replace him with an Adelaide drummer named Gordon Latta. Bill left after
an incident in which he was chased in his car on his way to work by gangsters who
threatened to shoot him because he was Jimmy Noall’s drummer. Noall, who
continued to run clubs like the Playboy and the Winston Charles disco after The
Embers closed some years later, was certainly something of a Melbourne racecourse
personality; The Embers had survived a major fire before my time and Frank told us
that Noall’s home had been attacked in a drive-by shooting. On the night in question
I arrived at the club to find Bill’s car, with head-lights on and driver’s door still ajar,
driven onto the footpath in front of the entrance to The Embers and with Bill, very
shaken, hiding inside the club. I never learned what was really going on but, I think
that it was the next night, there were armed security staff inside the club; and it was
around this time too that a bomb was exploded by persons unknown, set outside and
beneath the entrance to the club. The bomb wrecked the doors, which were quickly
repaired, and damaged the front of the club Maxim’s, which was directly across
Toorak Road, opposite The Embers.

The Benny Carter and Frank Smith quartets at The Embers 1960. From left: Curtis
Counce (bass BC), Ivan Videky (bass FS), Frank Capp (drums BC), Billy Ross
(drums FS), Frank Smith (saxes), Benny Carter (alto, trumpet), Jay Lawrence
(stand up comedian), Paul Muir (piano BC), Geoff Kitchen (tenor), Ted Nettelbeck
(piano FS).
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